St. Paul daily globe., 1887-05-09

The county school examiner who in
sisted that all applicants for the posi-
ton of teacher in the district school
must be proficient in the three Rs
Readin', Ritin' and 'Rithmetic-had a
fairly clear idea of the true qualifica-
tions of the pedagogue. 1t is lack of
proficiency in the art of teaching
the elementary branches which is
curse to our modern public
school system. This is partieu-
larly true in the cities and towns.
There is no more universal complaint
respecting the public schools than that
in regard to the inattention to small
children and the slowneSs with which
they progress. 1t is almost useless to
send a child to the public schools until
it has passed beyond the primary
grades. And even in the higher grades
of the common schools there is such a
lack of proficiency. in the methods of
teaching that it is almost impossi-
BILE to pass a pupil into the
high schools except the standard of
admission is fixed at ridiculouSly low
grade. AS an illustrations in point, it
was recently proposed by the school
board in Philadelphia to raise the stand
ard of admission to the high school of
that city to the minimum grade of sixty in
languages and in arithmetic. The propo-
sition was opposed by all the principals
of the district schools, who averred that
the proposed standard would make it
useless for them to attempt to prepare
pupils for the high school. There must
be something wrong in any system of
instruction which cannot elevate the
average pupil above the grade of sixty
in arithmetic. The solution of the diff
ticulty is probably presented by Gen.
WALKER, the president of the Boston
board of education, who gives it as his
opinion that too much time is spent in
the schools over the comparatively use
less technicalitfeS of arithmetic. That
is the conclusion he reaches after
a careful investigation of the meth
DDS of teaching in the Boston
schools. He says that arithmetic as
taught instead of drilling a child in
practical work, is a study of technical
applications that burthen the child's
memory, weary his brain, and wear out
his interest in the study without making
him accurate or giving him a reasonable
degree of facility in numerical calcula-
tons. Gen. WALKERS S criticism on the
Boston methods finds an application in
nearly every city. There is the same
tendency to teach grammar and other
branches in the same way. BY the in
PRODUCTION of battling examples teachers
succeed in distracting the mind of the
pupil from the practical purposes of the
study, and instead of making
the study an attraction it be-
comes positively bugbear to the
pupil. 1t is only when grammar or
arithmetic is made a complex matter
that either is deprived of its attraction.
And it is equally true of any other
study. Those who have given the mat
ter attention assert that in the
schools of higher education the
academies, colleges and technical schools
the students who have had the train
ing of city and village schools show less
proficiency in practical arithmetic than
those from the country. They explain
1t upon the ground that the useless tech
mcalities introduced into the city
schools, upon which time is practically
wasted. have been the means of confus-
ing and retarding the pupils. In the
light of all this testimony, it is about
time that the school authorities were
doing something toward simplifying the
modern methods of teaching in the pub
lie schools.